


Defense

by snarechan



Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-20
Updated: 2009-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarechan/pseuds/snarechan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lesson in lesser evils.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defense

**Author's Note:**

> On a prompt request post that I'd put up, an anonymous person left me a with a prompt for Blackout/Maggie, and asked me for something a little more in depth after my first attempt. Scorponok snuck in again. I don't know how he keeps doing this. Looked over by Cassandra Cassidy!

Maggie Madsen, age twenty-three, top of her university class, and once hired aid for the United States government, hadn’t experienced childhood since she’d received her first computer at the age of nine. She’d never been what a lot of the other folks would consider normal – she had loved to watch television and dress her Barbie dolls as company executives, and as soon as she had a computer to upgrade and play DOS games on, she was done for. There was no going back to being a little girl. Her mother was relieved when she became interested in fashion and make-up when she left home to get a higher education, but that was the extent of it.

Now, her life was even less normal than it could possibly be. Her birthday was coming up next month and she would have hopefully gone on to be hired by the military, but such hopes were inconsequential now, considering her world was on the brink of complete and absolute destruction.

She’d been present when the Decepticons had invaded her planet, and witnessed their superior might. Now it was all she could do to keep herself from getting stepped on, turned into a freaky lab experiment, or killed in any one of the fifty billion alternate ways the robotic dictators cared to share with her. It was stressful and altogether degrading, and a wonder she hadn’t died of sheer fright back when this started.

Then again, maybe her captor had a little something to do with that, too.

It went by the name of Blackout, though she’d figured out a long time ago that that wasn’t its real name. The Decepticons (or perhaps more accurately, its species) had a language all their own, but it was spoken in a fashion that no homo sapiens, such as herself, could hope to emulate. She didn’t speak or understand dial-up. Nor did she desire to, except in the instances when they would talk over her head in that screechy, obnoxious dialect of theirs, which made her wonder what they were plotting.

Today, though, she had a good idea what it was about. One of them, the tank (she had trouble telling them apart, occasionally, and it was even harder remembering their names), was yelling. It had started in ordinary English, snapping at her viciously for getting in its way, and as its anger intensified, it had reverted to its native language and begun saying rather threatening-sounding things.

Scorponok, who had been “playfully” tossing her into the air like some sick form of one-man volleyball, had flung her a little too hard and she’d ended up landing on the Decepticon’s foot. How that entailed her getting in the other’s way, she couldn’t figure; as far as she was concerned, the giant brute could half-step over her and never notice that she was there. But if there was one thing she’d since learned by being here, it was that Decepticons were whiny, picky, and detrimental. They could make a fight out of anything.

The both of them, drone and human woman, were scared at the escalating situation, the creature-like machine chittering nervously and huddling its body into as much of a ball as possible while still capable of scuttling backwards. In any other situation, she may have been amused how it hid behind _her,_ like a meat shield, but with her very life on the line, she was less than happy.

“What seems to be the problem, Brawl?”

Suddenly, Scorponok was gone behind her in a flash, darting instead to hide behind its master. While she would have – _should_ have – normally felt ashamed, she had no qualms about doing the same, running to hide behind the black robot’s right leg. Maggie didn’t even reach its ankle, but there was enough metal plating protruding all over that she was able to cling to it and not be noticed.

Brawl, as it was apparently named, shouted something heatedly, the noise coming from its throat and vibrating inside of her chest and staying there. It went beyond hurting her ears and instead felt like it was going to split her body every which way; it was that powerful, and it was that vicious-sounding. Blackout’s, while equally deep, only left a lingering echo in her head as it spoke far more calmly and collectedly than its compatriot, no doubt asking what in the world the other Decepticon’s problem was.

“Your kzzzztch vrrrrrphm touched keeer!”

Blackout cocked its head at that, perhaps amused, perhaps as confused as she was, perhaps feeling nothing or anything under the sun for all she knew. The Decepticon was not prone to showing a lot of what would go for emotion for them. She knew it could; more than once, it had returned to its room covered in scrapes and dents, no doubt from getting itself involved in a fight, one way or another.

It shifted slightly, causing her to gasp and adjust before concentrating on the two of them again, this time all sets of eyes on her.

“She is touching me, and I’ve yet to sense the degradation of my frame,” Blackout said, not taking its eyes off of her as it spoke. “Not afraid of a little sweat and flesh, are you, Brawl?”

Maggie expected it to explode, to open fire, to do _something_ violent, but instead Brawl guffawed, or at least imitated laughter the only way it knew how. There was nothing funny about it, though, or pleasant. It was too menacing to be called something so lighthearted, but she didn’t know what else to call that horrible huffing noise. It said something to Blackout, perhaps an agitated taunt, before moving to pass. It gave the other a hard pat to the shoulder, reminding her of football players who would swat at one another in rough play, only those sportsmen wouldn’t have left deep gouges in their teammates.

The black Decepticon neither flinched nor noticed the marks left behind, and once Brawl had left the facility of the room, it returned its attention to them. Without saying a word, Blackout carefully kneeled and jutted out its arm, which Scorponok, sulking, hopped up onto. For a moment it parodied a parrot, sitting atop the Blackout’s shoulder, before burying itself in it's master's back.

“You too, human,” it ordered, proffering a hand for her to crawl onto. She did so hesitantly, used to being forced to walk everywhere.

“I am taking you to my room,” Blackout informed her as it lifted her, the motion nearly making her sick to her stomach. “And I would highly advise you stay there.”

“Um…okay,” she mumbled, not sure what else to say. Rarely did they hold any semblance of a conversation; come to think of it, this was the first time they had spoken in a very long time. She had no way of telling time, but if she had to wager a guess, it would be close to a few weeks, maybe even an entire month. “And, uh…thanks. I mean, thank you, for saving me back there. I think.”

Honestly, Maggie wasn’t sure why she said that. It popped out of her without her consent. She could blame her parents for distilling the utmost manners in her, but she was too headstrong and blunt for most of those teachings to have stuck. Whatever the case, her words actually gave the other pause, it turning to regard her fully again for the second time that hour. Up this close, the closest she had ever come to seeing its face, she could make out the tiny and delicate components that made up its eyes, the gears turning in a slow, red circle.

“You can thank me by keeping out of trouble,” it said at last, continuing with its trek, and released her from its gaze.

-Fin-


End file.
